Quite a few Urdu poets of the past chose distinctive pen names woven around their home towns. Abdul Hayee chose to be Sahir Ludhianvi (Sahir from Ludhiana). There are many more such examples...NOTE: Real name and home town, in brackets.
Majrooh Sultanpuri (Asrar ul Hassan Khan, Sultanpur)
Khumar Barabankvi (Mohammed Haidar Khan, Barabanki)
Akbar Allahabadi (Syed Akbar Hussain, Allahabad)
Jigar Moradabadi (Ali Sikandar, Moradabad)
Firaq Gorakhpuri (Raghupati Sahay, Gorakhpur)
Safi Lakhnavi (Syed Ali Naqi Zaidi, Lucknow)
Josh Malihabadi (Shabbir Hasan Khan, Malihabad in Pakistan)
Shakeel Badayuni (Shakeel, Badayun)
Asad Bhopali (?, Bhopal)
Waseem Barelwi (?, Bareilly)
Zia Jalandhari (?, Jalandhar)
Hafeez Hoshiarpuri (?, Hoshiarpur)
Danish Aligarhi (?, Aligarh)
Hasrat Jaipuri (Iqbal Husain, Jaipur)
Shad Azeemabadi (Syed Ali Mohammed, Azeemabad, Patna)
Shadab Lahori (Shadab Khan, Lahore)
Ayaz Jhanswi (?, Jhansi)
Meraj Faizabadi (?, Faizabad)
Adeeb Saharanpuri (?, Saharanpur)
Khamosh Gazipuri (?, Gazipur)
Nazeer Banarsi (?, Banaras)
Qamar Jalalabadi (?, Jalalabad)
Rai Rampuri (?, Rampur)
Rahat Indori (?, Indore)
Noor Bijnauri (?, Bijnore)
